


Streetlight People

by wajjs



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Comfort, Comfort No Hurt, Dick and Steph make a cameo, Gen, Jason is loved and he never realizes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: Gotham knows her children, knows them well and welcomes them in her folds.
Relationships: Gotham City & Jason Todd, Gotham City Residents & Jason Todd
Comments: 20
Kudos: 243





	Streetlight People

**Author's Note:**

> I'm unsure of how to tag this, so if you think more tags are needed, please let me know which ones

**Streetlight** **People**

Gotham knows her children, knows them well and welcomes them in her folds.

Gotham knows her children, even those with no name, even those taken from the streets never to see light again.

Those who return in pieces, inside refrigerating boxes, beaten by the system, blind or toothless, they are her belly, they are her guts. Those who return when no one else comes from her soil, they are the double-edged sword dangling from above and from below, just as Gotham prepares for a rain of sorts.

A frail little thing, smudged makeup and hand-filled dress, rushes to his side the moment he touches down before he continues with his route for the night. Well, rushes as much as she can with twigs for legs and round burn marks over her thighs.

“Riddler’s men just went east,” and she points down the street, barely leaning outside the mouth of the alley as she does, “tons of them.”

He’s stunned for a moment, still in the way that kills, before he kicks back into gear and faces down the direction she’s so graciously giving him - even when he didn’t ask, because he hadn’t _known_. He's unsure of what to say, a thank you feels too overused, too little. So he takes in her appearance, the dirty alley, the hollow of her cheeks, makes a list in his head of things he will do for her to make the nights more bearable.

With a nod, he leaps back onto the nearest roof, tapping the side of his helmet where his comm is as he sprints, jumps over the ledge, lands and sprints some more. The information checks out, there’s footage of it, how did he know so quickly? He runs and runs and pushes the oddity of the encounter to the back of his mind for the moment. Lets the night unfold.

The children of Gotham know her, and know each other.

Those who live in her belly, in her entrails, know the waste, the dirt and the gutter. Those who live in her veins recognize each other, those with clear enough eyes still stand for their own.

A murmur starts through the smog and thickness of summer, a child of Gotham that returns triumphant, a child of Gotham that puts holes in the knees of those who hunt children and women, one who mingles with their trash, one who is as dirty, as ruthless, as stubborn as Gotham’s children are. It starts after a teenage mother goes back to her small, run-down apartment to her grandmother and her baby, clothes torn but everything in place. It continues when the rats, the dogs, the cats and dead pigeons that street kids are talk among themselves, whisper with the first traces of wonder about someone who could be, might be, hopefully is, safe. It grows and grows and grows until all of Gotham’s children know: we too can make it. We too are strong. We too survive.

It happens a second time. A third. A fourth. Whenever he’s within reach, someone approaches him, some ask him to avoid certain places, others guide him in the correct direction. It doesn’t stick till the night he’s coming down a rickety fire escape when two floors down an old woman pops out her head, twists as much as she can to look at him and smiles as she leaves a small, cracked, tupper filled with homemade cookies. Nightwing’s dickish voice coos in his ear from the rooftop across the street as he grumbles a thank you into the open window and the woman replies with:

“Just stay safe.”

_“Aw,”_ Dick laughs as he tries to discreetly check that the tupper won’t explode the minute he picks it up, _“you got fans!”_

With how much his cheeks are burning, he kind of laments the cookies aren't actually a bomb.

The night moves on slowly. Which is good, because he has a handful of cookies he doesn’t know what to do with, and a tupper he fully plans on returning. He knows how expensive these things can be.

“I’m kind of jealous,” Steph says moments later when she lands next to them, eyes and hands going straight for the gift he’s still holding onto and won’t. let. go. “I too want to be given food during patrol!”

“Hey,” his protest is weak, his head still in a million places, trying to figure out what the hell is going on, “back off. Go get your own.” 

Which is kind of a stupid thing to say, considering his helmet, considering he’s still half-convinced they are poisoned, considering he’s so confused but he won’t admit it. When they go back to the cave, Steph and Dick laugh at him for running analysis on one of the cookies, tease him with a name that to this day he has trouble saying, eat half of his gift when the tests come clean. Alfred helps him bake something in thanks, looks at him with warm eyes and a secretive smile.

He doesn’t know what to make of it.

Gotham’s existence is circular. She does and undoes her history. For every time of peace come a hundred of blood. He takes to the streets no one thinks on taking. He picks up girls from their corners, takes them to their houses, saves the ones caught by rioting Blackgate inmates. He is surrounded and fights his way out, takes mouthfuls of violence and never chokes. A man thrice his age shouts out a warning, saves him from a nasty stab on the back of his shoulder. It never occurs to him that he’s not the only one looking after everybody. It never occurs to him that what he gives is reciprocated in kind.

Gotham knows her children. Her children know Gotham. 

Little kids in the streets with paper hats and holes in their shoes laugh as they splash in a puddle of mud, as they bathe in the rain. They laugh and they sing:

_Red Hood is our brother,_

_Red Hood is our own,_

_he’ll be there if you need him,_

_he is red like our blood!_


End file.
